Chris Watts Mistress Nichol Kessinger is discussed in Part 6 of the Confession Transcript: FBI Agent asks Chris point blank if she was involved in Shanann Watts murder, if his son Nico was named after her, etc.

(The Chris Watts Mistress Confession Part 6 is continued from Part One , Part Two , Part Three & Part Four & Five of The Chris Watts Interview Transcript ).

Note to other media outlets about use: I have spent days working on the 5 hour Chris Watts confession interview transcript, since the FBI did not make a full transcription available. You are welcome to use it by linking back to this website. 

[ Begin Chris Watts Mistress Portion of Confession Interview Transcript Part 6] 

Grahm (FBI): There are quite a few people who would tell us, and do tell us, “You need to look into Nikki more”. Nikki Kessinger.  All the way from the extreme end of things being “Nikki is the one who ordered the hit”. [*Note: ‘Nikki’ is the nickname of Chris Watts mistress Nichol Kessinger. One of the biggest questions online has been was Chris Watts mistress involved in the murders, either directly or indirectly?].

Tammy (CBI):  “…she was there hiding in the basement!”

Grahm: So the extreme is “she is the one who told Chris to do it. she is the real problem”. All the way –that’s the extreme side– and then all the way to “Well there are these texts where she was infatuated, she was in love, she was saying how good Chris was in the sack”, and “Maybe we should look at her more”. What would you say to those people?

Chris:  She had her moments where I had to talk her, like, off a ledge kinda deal.

Grahm: What does that mean?

Chris: Like, I guess after the fact there was like videos of her where she was recording herself because she was bipolar or something? I never knew that. But, it’s like, she would get worked up about nothing. She came to my house once, cuz I think it was July 4th [*Note: Chris Watts mistress had been to his house more than ‘just once’ as he claims. It’s known for certain she was also at the home on 07/14 when they visited a Mustang museum in Boulder Colorado, and speculated she may have been there additional times]. I didn’t have to work that day, so I didn’t get up at like 4:00 and go home and Shanann had called me, like, 10 times in a row. I didn’t hear it because I was sleeping. And, she was pissed, Shanann was pissed. And I called her outside like “Where are you at, like what are you–” I was like “I didn’t have to work today, you called me at like 5:30am.” And she’s like “Well the kids want to talk to you, it’s 7:30” I’m like “I was sleeping”. She’s like, she’s just like “Screw you, I don’t know where you’re at” and I went back inside and I told Nikki “I’ve gotta go!”, and she was just like “Okay, are you coming back?”. I’m like “Probably not”.

Grahm: So wait a minute you kinda lost me there- were you at Nikki’s place when Shanann called you?

Chris: Yes, yea.

Grahm: Ok so you were sleeping in her bed?

Chris: Yeah cuz I wasn’t going to work that day—

Grahm: I gotcha.

Chris: —cuz I didn’t have to that day. It’s the first holiday I’ve ever had off and, you know, Shanann was pissed and you know, it kinda pissed Nikki off too that I left, but I think that’s when she, uh, I called Nikki later and she kinda realized that she’d always be like the second, she said “second bill”. And I said I probably wouldn’t come back that day. I don’t want to be anywhere else when Shanann calls, she was already pissed. So, it was stuff like that where she would go, she said she would go online websites and look at like “Will our relationship work?”, “Will a mistress turn into a relationship?”.

Grahm: That’s what Nikki was looking up?

Chris: Yeah.

Grahm: She would tell you that or your—

Chris: She told me that. She said that she would go on websites and look at stuff like that. I was like “Why do you even look at stuff like that?”. She’s like “I just want to see what other people have experienced”.

Grahm: But that confuses me though, because I thought earlier you were saying SHE thought you were headed towards a divorce, so why was she looking at herself as a mistress?

Chris: This was later on

Grahm: Oh.

Chris: Like you know, in August, like the first week of August when I told her like, I had had that talk with her about separation, that’s when she started looking at apartments and stuff. Like during our July relationship type thing, that’s when she was looking up like, “Will it actually work”. She told her friend Brittany about it, I guess, and Brittany told her not to do it but she said she already made her decision.

Grahm: Okay. And so, are those people absolutely wrong about Nikki? She wasn’t asking you to get rid of your family?

Chris: No.

Grahm: Are you sure?

Chris: Yeah, I’m sure.

Pictured Above: Chris Watts mistress Nichol Kessinger with Chris at Zapata Falls

Grahm: Okay. And no part of any of this was because she put it in your head or asked you to or…?

Chris: No, she never- I mean- this whole relationship contributed to it.

Grahm: Sure.

Chris: But she never, it never, no…. she didn’t want me to do this.

Tammy: Was it ever like “I wish you didn’t have kids, I want to have kids of my own with you”?

Chris: She never knew if she wanted to have kids, but she said that, you know, at one point she said “I’d like to give you a son”.

Pictured Above: Chris Watts mistress Nikki Kessinger dining with Chris at The Rooftop Tavern

Tammy: Well, did she know that Shanann was pregnant with a boy?

Chris: No.

Tammy: Did she know Shanann was pregnant?

Chris: No.

Tammy: And why is that? You just didn’t tell her?

Chris: I didn’t tell her. Cuz, like, we had met—

Tammy: —but Shanann put that on Facebook! Like, how did she not see that?

Chris: I don’t know. Maybe she did and wait for me to tell her or she put it on her end? [*Note: Forensic analysis of Chris Watts mistress phone revealed she had, in fact, viewed Shanann Watts Facebook page. She clearly was not in the dark about the pregnancy].

Grahm: Can I ask you a question? A lot of people think you named Nico after Nikki. So what was that about?

Chris: Nico was actually a name that Shanann liked.

Grahm: Okay. Shanann thought of that one?

Chris: Yeah, I actually wanted to spell it like N-E-K-O, I thought it was like ‘Neko’ that way, but she said N-I-C-O. I thought it said like “Nick-O” or something.

Grahm: Okay.

Chris: I guess Nico is like more of like an Italian name, and to like leave her my middle name and my dad’s and all that, but Nico, that’s a name that she always liked.

Grahm: Okay.

Tammy: Did she name all the kids? Did she name Bella and Celeste?

Chris: Yeah, because Bella in Italian means “beautiful”, Marie, her mom’s middle name, Celeste because her grandmother’s name, Cathryn is Shanann’s middle name.

Tammy: Did you have any input in their names?

Chris: I said I liked ‘em. I was like if we had a third child, you know, and we could have Lee in the middle name, I know the girl’s names..I love those names. So I was like, “That’s cool”. Especially since we have little nicknames for them like Bell and Bellabean and CeCe, obviously.

Dave [Frederick, CO Detective]: Can we go back to the house on the 13th? So at one point right when you got back there, Coonrod – Officer Coonrod -, and Nickole was there. You went in the house and were there for about a minute or so before you let everybody in. Do you remember what you were doing in there at that time? [*Note: This is in reference to Chris’ first point of contact with police. Shanann Watts’ friend Nickole Atkinson had called police to do a welfare check after not being able to get in touch with Shanann and noticing her car was still in the driveway. She called Chris, who made an excuse that she was on a “playdate”. This didn’t sit well with Nickole, since she could see Shanann’s shoes in the doorway and carseats in the vehicle. This is when she called Frederick Colorado police. Chris was told to leave work and get back to the house to make sure everything was okay. When he arrived, instead of going right in the house and opening the door, he went into the garage, opened Shanann’s car door, went inside, and it took him about a minute and a half to open the front door to let responding Officer Coonrod, Nickole Atkinson, and her son into the house. It’s been widely assumed that in that minute and a half, Chris was likely hiding evidence since it should have taken him just seconds to open the door for them].

Chris: So I went in through the garage and then I ran around and I opened the front door- did everyone come in through the garage or the front door?

Dave: Everyone came through the front door.

Chris: Yeah so I came in, I went in through there, I came in and opened the front door, uhh, ran upstairs, I acted like I was looking around.

Dave: Did you go around the house at all before you opened the front door?

Chris: No, I didn’t run around the house, I stayed down the bottom floor and went and opened the door.

Dave: Yeah, yeah, ok, I was just curious.

Chris: I ran upstairs with everyone else, that’s when Nickole’s son found the phone and I was going through…acting like I was walking through the house.

Tammy: Shanann had her bra on? Is that normal that she was sleeping in a bra? [*Note: When Shanann Watts body was found, she was wearing a T-Shirt and bra. Questions have come up about why she would have still been wearing a bra if she was killed in her sleep, as most people don’t wear bras to bed].

Chris: Mmmm… every once in awhile. She just got home from the plane so she didn’t even take off her makeup or anything. Maybe she was just that tired, but normally, I don’t know?

Tammy: Did it not come off when you guys had sex?

Chris: I don’t think so. Sometimes she just keeps her shirt on and she doesn’t want me to…(makes popping sound with mouth) she wants what she wants, she knew what she wanted.

Tammy: Was it just missionary sex?

Chris: Yup.

Grahm: And her final resting place, was that just naturally what she was wearing? You didn’t change her or anything like that?

Chris: No.

Tammy: Did you have to see any of that stuff? Pictures or anything? [*Meaning Shanann Watts autopsy photos or crime scene photos].

Chris: No. I asked not to.

Tammy: Okay.

Chris: They said I could I was like no, I don’t want—  I’ve prayed for those HazMat workers that, I’m sure it’s like HazMat, right?

Tammy: We were all there.

Dave: We were all there.

Chris: I’m sorry. I never wanted to see it. I prayed for those that had to be there. I don’t ever want to know what the aftermath was. They said if there was ever a preliminary hearing that I would have to see them, just to be prepared and not have a reaction… an initial reaction… but I don’t want to see them.

Tammy: Do you feel like your lawyers were fair to you?

Chris: Yeah, they were my only human contact really. So they were almost like a guidance counsellor almost.

Tammy: Did you feel like you were driving the bus though? With your decisions you made or no?

Chris: Yeah, there was a lot of things I didn’t know were going on behind the scenes. Maybe there were a lot of things they never told me. Like, you know, like stuff that came out afterwards like that whole Nikki Kissinger article in the Denver Post, they told me like afterwards and everything. I always felt like anything I was telling them they were fair, they were gonna do. Like the whole taking the plea deal and everything I told them that’s what I wanted to do. They asked me, it seems like 100 times, “Are you sure you want to do this?”. Up until sentencing I had time to back out, before we walked into the courtroom they were like “Are you sure?”. I said “Yeah, this is it”. They never told me this is what you have to do. They always just said this is your decision if you want to take this further. Even John said, he had all kinds of motions written all kinds of stuff that was really creative cuz he had never been in something like this before. He was ready to fight and I was like “I didn’t want you to have to do that. Not for me. Not for something that the story isn’t right…isn’t true”. It would have only gotten worse for everybody. For all three of you, for everybody that was involved in it.

Pictured Above: Chris Watts mistress Nichol Kessinger’s interview with Denver Post (ScreenShot)

Grahm: Are you still glad you did?

Chris: Yeah, I mean I never thought I’d be in prison the rest of my life but, like, I don’t want people to have to keep going through this every day of their lives knowing there’s a trial hanging over their heads. I didn’t want people to have to relive it every day. Did they ever have to see the pictures? Frank and Sandy and all them?

Dave: No, they never saw them. They saw some things. They never saw anything bad- we shielded that from them.

Chris: Okay. I didn’t want them to have to see anything or hear anybody talk about…or anyone bash their daughter, like if some of my friends had a negative impact from her or had a description of her that didn’t match I didn’t want them to hear that either, I didn’t want anyone to trash her memory. I wanted them to know she was a loving wife, she was beautiful, she always helped everybody else, all her friends, her Lupus friends…everybody. I don’t want anybody to take away what she did.

Tammy: We tried to get you to say that that night, do you remember that? I knew you obviously weren’t ready to say that then.

Chris: I know, I remember after my dad left you both came in like “alright, we got most of the story, let’s get to the true story”. I just wanted to bang my head against the table.

Grahm: Well in the end I think you did the right thing, and even though it’s hard to hear, there’s a lot of people  who thank you for what you did. I think your whole life has been thinking of others except for one, brief moment. I think you really did think of others when you made that choice. So, I personally thank you, right. It would have been hard for the three of us to go through not this hard or for everyone else not that hard, right?

Chris: Anybody that was family or friends would have just been exponentially harder for everybody.

Shanann’s Family (Sandy, Frank, and Frankie Rzucek) have asked that those interested in remembering and honoring the lives of Shanann Watts, Bella Watts, Celeste ‘CeCe’ Watts and Baby Nico Watts can make a donation in their honor to one of three charities they adore: The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital or The Lupus Foundation.